(CNSNews.com) – Comedian Bill Maher on Saturday called President Barack Obama “the first pothead president” and advocated for the decriminalization of marijuana possession.

"If anyone can say smoking pot won’t ruin your life, it’s the guy who smoked bales of it and then became the leader of the free world," Maher said on HBO's “Real Time with Bill Maher.”

Maher called marijuana “the new gay marriage,” saying “it’s the next obvious civil rights issue that needs to fall.”

“Gay barriers fell when Americans realized gays are their neighbors, their friends, their family members, their co-workers, certainly that must also be true of potheads. We all know at least one. In fact, I bet there’s one pothead who you all know,” Maher said, as a photo of Obama popped up on the screen.

“Oh, not anymore, but here he is back in high school with his stoner posse … posing with a cake that I’m guessing didn’t last long,” Maher added. “And it makes me curious why he evolved so much on gay marriage, but has actually escalated the war on pot.

“At the correspondents’ dinner this year, he joked, ‘I remember when BuzzFeed was something I did in college around 2 a.m.,' which killed in the room, but perhaps not so funny to all the young lives ruined for doing the exact same thing he did back in Honolulu,” Maher said.

“A simple pot conviction can foreclose on opportunities to vote, get a job, go to college, or qualify for housing. How can our first black president and our first pothead president be aware of that and just look the other way. If anyone can say smoking pot won’t ruin your life, it’s the guy who smoked bales of it and then became leader of the free world,” the comedian concluded.